There's a syllogism that explains this, but it's a little bit convolved. It goes like this.
Democracies in which law and order rules, in which justice is blind, in which people are free to rise to whatever level their talents take them, are boring. Not many interesting stories for the artistes of the human condition that write for the New York Times to sink their teeth into. After all, how many times have we been told that "nobody wants to read that yesterday the trains ran on time."
Dictatorships and terrorists, on the other hand, generate lots of "interesting" stories. Here, by "interesting," we typically mean "so upsetting that they can motivate an otherwise occupied person to stop whatever useful work he or she is doing and shell out some money for a copy of the New York Times."
The problem is this: the dictators and terrorists won't talk to the reporters of the New York Times if the editors of the New York Times don't make sure that nothing bad is said about the dictators and terrorists, or about the cities and nations over which they hold sway.
In fact, it's even worse than that. If the New York Times doesn't make sure it prints stories that are pleasing to terrorists and dictators, it will inevitably come to pass that all kinds of bad luck will befall the employees of the New York Times as they struggle to carry forward with their oh-so-vital work of gathering the news in those most interesting places. That bad luck may even, at times, extend to such unpleasantness as the hacking off of heads, etc.
So, you see, it is simply good news-gathering practice to make sure that those who would be motivated to kill their reporters are kept well-placated by means of an endless stream of laudatory stories in the pages of the New York Times.
Eason Jordan of CNN figured this out too, in connection with the challenges of keeping CNN's "bureau" in Baghdad functioning in close quarters Mr. Saddam Hussein, but he was, unfortunately, too indiscreet to keep it to himself. Not all news is newsworthy, you see.